You can’t expect everyone buying a headphone to EQ or even know about EQ.
Remember; the point of reviewing isn’t supposed to be giving you or anyone validation for liking or not liking things. It’s to give feedback to brands on how to improve their product and information to consumers on what the headphone will be like in use. EQ doesn’t really make sense for either of those things.
I understand you probably like your headphones with EQ, but reviewing a headphone with EQ isn’t defensible IMO. It closes the gap in performance and gives brands more of a handicap than they ought to have, and is overly forgiving to a product experience that will likely be worse for the end users than it would be for a reviewer with a measurement rig + EQ.
Fwiw oratory’s EQs are only usable up to like 4-5kHz anyway. EQ is a nuanced thing that wouldn’t even necessarily fix 400SE’s most glaring flaw (the treble).
doctor-gooch t1_iufchi4 wrote
Reply to comment by Daprosy in Hifiman HE400SE Versus HD560S - Modestly Priced Madness by slooploop2
You can’t expect everyone buying a headphone to EQ or even know about EQ.
Remember; the point of reviewing isn’t supposed to be giving you or anyone validation for liking or not liking things. It’s to give feedback to brands on how to improve their product and information to consumers on what the headphone will be like in use. EQ doesn’t really make sense for either of those things.
I understand you probably like your headphones with EQ, but reviewing a headphone with EQ isn’t defensible IMO. It closes the gap in performance and gives brands more of a handicap than they ought to have, and is overly forgiving to a product experience that will likely be worse for the end users than it would be for a reviewer with a measurement rig + EQ.
Fwiw oratory’s EQs are only usable up to like 4-5kHz anyway. EQ is a nuanced thing that wouldn’t even necessarily fix 400SE’s most glaring flaw (the treble).